My husband and I booked a 7 night bus tour of European cities. Both 28 years old, we were the youngest couple on the tour by at least 10 years. Most of the others in our travel group were retired.
The tour guide, Angelo, was a ruggedly handsome man who oozed charisma. I wasn't the only wife who stole glimpses of him and laughed a little too hard at his bad jokes. Needless to say, he was a part of many of the tourists' pictures.
On our second night in Europe, a number of people from the tour gathered in a local beer hall. My charming husband quickly became very popular with a group of 3 retired female teachers. He enjoyed their flirting and their compliments. More than once throughout the evening, he received a pinch or a squeeze, too. I found it funny and entertaining, and thought nothing of letting him go to one of their rooms to play some cards while I headed to our room to shower and go to bed. I don't usually stay up too late, but my husband is a night owl.
When he came back to our room, he stumbled around the cramped quarters, waking me up. I glanced at my phone and saw it was 3:00 am. As he laid down next to me, he smelled of cheap perfume. I asked him how the card games went. He just said that he won some and lost some. I rolled over and went back to sleep.
The next day, the 3 women were chatty and flirty with him again. They called him their "boy toy". I was starting to get a little annoyed with them. As the morning wore on, I made my husband stay by my side and steered him clear of those women as much as possible. We boarded a bus that afternoon for the 3-hour drive to the next city. As we were driving, my husband fell asleep. He asked me to put his phone in my purse before he dozed off, because it was uncomfortable in his pocket.
About 20 minutes later, his phone started buzzing and buzzing with texts. I pulled it out of my purse, and my heart sank as I saw the notifications for each text. "I want some more of your sugar." "Hey sexy, love those abs." "Repeat performance tonight, hunk?" Then, the pictures started coming through. Though they were smaller than usual on the notification screen, I could still make out the one of him in his underwear, the one with his underwear on a lady's head, and the one of a naked older woman straddling his face.
My tears started to flow, and I threw his phone back into my purse. The buzzes continued, so I just reached down and turned it off. I wanted to throw the damn thing out the window, and I just sat there and cried, while my pig of a husband slept. Angelo heard my whimpering, and he turned from his seat and offered me a tissue. He tapped the empty seat next to him, and mouthed the words "Need to talk?"
